How to make Siri tell the weather in Celsius on the iPad

I’ve upgraded my 3rd gen iPad to iOS6 in the first 5 minutes when the new software was out. Obviously, first thing I’ve tried afterwards was Siri, I’ve long been waiting to take it for a spin and see what it can do. And among the first questions, the most obvious popped up: “Siri, how’s the weather like today?” The answer came sharply:

It’s all good, except I need the weather in Celsius degrees, that’s what we use where I live. Tried finding a way to have Siri tell me the weather in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, but every suggestion failed.

Apparently, Apple’s lovely virtual assistant still has trouble understanding some simple commands. Or maybe our expectations of her have come to be too big? Anyhow, since direct interaction with her didn’t change her mind, I’ve started dabbling around in settings and the new stuff that came with iOS6 and stumbled upon a solution to the weather issue. So here’s what you need to do to change Siri’s settings from Fahrenheit to Celsius:

– open up the new Clock app (that iOS6 so graciously brought us, even if it’s a bit, shall we say, inspired)

– click the Edit button in the app’s upper left corner

– there, under the “powered by Yahoo!” logo, you have 2 tabbed options: F (from Fahrenheit) and C (obviously Celsius); by default, the Fahrenheit option is selected, so if you need the weather in Celsius just click and select the C tab

Just to add that no other suggestion worked, like changing the regional settings and so. On the iPhone it’s clearly simpler to achieve this change since the iPhone, unlike the iPad, does have a standalone weather app, from where you can select Fahrenheit or Celsius. As you can see above, it’s a bit trickier on the iPad, but I’m glad that at least there is a way to do it. I’d hate to have to make Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions in my mind all the time, when asking for the weather.

And this concludes today’s “how to” lesson. Now go and ask Siri stupid questions like “why is the sky blue” and “when is the world coming to an end”. I know I will.